As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional sinker 10 on a knitting machine generally can be moved reciprocally to-and-fro by driving a nub 11 formed thereon. When the sinker 10 is in operation reciprocally for a prolonged period of time, other portions of the sinker 10 such as the push friction end 101, first driving friction end 111, second driving friction end 112 and loading friction end 121 have to be properly cooled and lubricated. The most common approach at present is applying lubrication oil. In practice the sinker 10 includes an oil sprinkling zone 14 to receive lubrication oil 71 sprinkled from an oil ejection nozzle 70, and the lubrication oil 71 flows downward after sprinkling to cool and lubricate the push friction end 101, first driving friction end 111, second driving friction end 112 and loading friction end 121. However, because the design and structure of the conventional sinker 10 often do not take into account of the lubrication oil could flow to the knitting portion 13, yarns in the knitting portion 13 could be smeared by the lubrication oil during knitting operation and result in increasing of quality defects of the knitting fabrics.
To remedy the aforesaid problem Taiwan patent No. M365935 discloses an improvement for a sinker that mainly includes a flank, a nose at an upper side of the rear end of the flank, a nose located at a upper side of a rear end of the flank, a guide portion at a lower side of the rear end, and a notch at the bottom edge of the flank that can be formed in a square, a trapezoid, an arc or other shapes. The notch also shapes the bottom edge of the flank to form a front bottom edge and a rear bottom edge. The guide portion and the flank are spaced from each other. The guide portion is jutting at a length to cover the notch, namely the jutting portion of the guide portion includes a front end formed at a size slightly greater than or equal to the location distance of the front end wall of the notch. The guide portion is located below the rear end of the flank. The sinker also includes a guiding nub at the read side. Through the aforesaid structure when the sinker and its corresponding knitting needle are in knitting operation they can be positioned at the notch to fend off lubrication oil. However, with the notch formed at the bottom edge of the sinker, when the knitting needle corresponding to the notch is withdrawing the sinker remains moving to and fro continuously, as a result the lubrication oil remained at two sides of the notch still can smear the yarns and cause quality defects of the knitted fabrics. It is obvious that although the aforesaid conventional technique that adopts the design of the notch can reduce the chance or amount of smearing the yarns with lubrication oil, during knitting operation the sinker still cannot fully separate the lubrication oil from the yarns or their knitting fabrics.
In view of the shortcomings of the conventional sinker how to provide improvement of the sinker to fully and effectively separate the lubrication oil from in contact with the yarns or their knitting fabrics is an issue remained to be resolved in the industry.